The Decision-Making Process

Chapter 5 - Using Spreadsheets as a Decision Support Tool: An Application for Small Businesses
Managing IT in Government, Business & Communities
by Gerry Gingrich (ed)
Idea Group Publishing 2003

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The Decision-Making Process

Two of the elements that affected the decisions made by the model in relation to the cost of implementation of the Web site and the skills needed to implement it were the financial outlay that the business was prepared to make and the skill level of employees.

Financial Outlay

In determining the mechanisms for asking small businesses to estimate the capital that they were prepared to commit to the Web site, users were provided with a range of four typical options as the estimated financial outlay for the project, ranging from the inexpensive (a small Web site) to the most expensive (a larger Web site with interactive features). A range of setup and maintenance costs was provided for each option in the accompanying manual. In this way, some guidelines were provided for the small businesses as to what they would get for their money.

The various financial outlay options were given a rating ranging from "1" for the most inexpensive (a small Web site developed with a package or wizard) to "4" for the most expensive (a larger Web site containing a number of interactive features). These are referred to later in the analysis.

Employee Expertise

This section allowed the expertise level of employees who would be associated with the Web site to be entered. Again, a range of choices was provided and explained in the manual. Users of the model would then select the option related to the most skilled employee that would be working on the Web site.

Figure 2: Level of Financial Commitment Screen

Figure 3: Information Technology Expertise Screen

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